Each spring, Tim Lampkin budgets enough money for his two sons to get through the baseball season.

Bats, balls and gloves can cost a few hundred dollars. Same with entry fees for tournaments. Travel expenses, such as a hotel room and dinner, can easily add up to a couple thousand dollars over a few months.

The ever-increasing price of gas is adding to the expense a little, but hardly slowing him down. For Lampkin and other parents of players on youth baseball tournament teams – all-star teams that play in as many as a dozen tournaments a year, most of them out of town – shelling out extra for the gas to get them to the tournaments has become just another cost of doing business.

“It’s all about the kids,” said Lampkin, who coaches his son Connor on the 11-year-olds’ Vicksburg Mustangs. His 7-year-old son, Taylor, plays for the Vicksburg Bulldogs. “As long as my two boys want to play ball, I’ll have to sacrifice a few things I want.”

Most tournament teams in Vicksburg have made few concessions to high gas prices. Some said they’ve tried to play in events closer to home instead of going to the Gulf Coast or Southaven. This morning, the average gas price in and around Vicksburg was $3.89 a gallon.

Lampkin said the Bulldogs opted not to play in a USSSA state tournament in Orange Grove, on the coast, because of travel expenses. Bo Magoun, coach of the 11-year-olds’ Vicksburg Red Sox, said his team is playing two or three fewer tournaments this year compared to 2007, and more in Central Mississippi, and is selling raffle tickets to raise traveling money. The Red Sox are planning one big trip, to the USSSA World Series in Pensacola, Fla., next month.

“We’re going to play ball,” Magoun said. “Tournament ball has gotten really big. There’s a cost involved regardless of whether gas is $6 a gallon or not.”

Magoun said he and his fellow Red Sox parents have gotten picky about where they play, though. His son Collin plays on the 8-year-olds’ Vicksburg Tide and traveled to Southaven for two different tournaments – only to get rained out both times. Despite playing just one game in two trips north, the cost was the same.

“It was almost a waste,” Magoun said. “That was one of the reasons we decided not to go that far off. You go to Southaven or somewhere like that, and you’re looking at $500 just for a day or two, when you get a hotel room, gas and eat out.”

On the whole, the number of tournament teams in Vicksburg has not changed much from last year.

The Vicksburg Warren Athletic Association fields about 15 tournament teams from its leagues. That’s about the same as in years past, when both the Vicksburg Baseball Association and Culkin Athletic Association are factored in. The VWAA was created by the merger of the other two organizations last winter.

“People that are big into it, they’re not scaling back,” said VWAA vice president David McHan. “People aren’t driving to Southaven or Gulfport like they used to. They’re going to Madison or Brandon.”

Or staying home and playing in Vicksburg.

The Aquila Group, which took over operation of Halls Ferry Park this spring and is planning to build a new baseball complex in the city, held a series of weekend tournaments in April and May. Aquila will also host two USSSA state tournaments at Halls Ferry this summer. Ricky Mitchell, Aquila’s liaison to the VWAA, said 24 to 32 teams competed in each of the tournaments.

“It’s helped out that Aquila has put on the tournaments in town. That’s saved us a lot of money,” Lampkin said.

It could also help a number of other teams. Vicksburg’s central location between Jackson and Monroe allows a host of teams from Central Mississippi and North Louisiana to cut travel costs, making it an attractive location. In the future, if Aquila can get its new complex built, Mitchell feels it will only add to the location to make Vicksburg an attractive spot for youth baseball.

“There are tournaments played in North Louisiana, but they don’t have anything compared to what Southaven or Gulfport has. If we can build this complex we’ll have something that’s centrally located,” Mitchell said. “We have the potential to start some border wars and give them a break from the same competition they see every weekend.”